We were booked onto 2 of the smaller lakes, Damsel and Kingfisher. I had never seen these lakes before myself as I have only fished on the main match lake.
From info available it seemed there should be some skimmers to catch if they were in a feeding mood with a few carp here and there.
I drew peg 5 on Damsel which is in a corner of the lake facing at an angle towards the main body of the lake, I set up to fish at 5m, 13m and 14.5m on the pole and I set up my 8ft feeder rod with a small pellet feeder.
We had a 16m limit to stop anglers crossing lines hence the short rod.
At the start I fed 3 balls of groundbait containing micro pellets and pinkies at 14.5m and 1 large ball of groundbait with pinkies and a few maggots at 5m. I then had 30 minutes on the feeder in the hope of a carp or 2 but had no bites on this.
Time to try the 14.5m line, with maggot on the hook I caught a few plump Roach and some small skimmers (and 1 Perch), after an hour I was waiting longer for bites so I refed with a ball of groundbait, at this time I also fed some micro pellets at 13m then tried the 5m line.
The 5m line produced a few roach and small skimmers but I was waiting a long time for bites so after 20 minutes I tried the pellet line at 13m with a 4mm expander on the hook. After a little wait the float disappeared and in came a big skimmer so I then alternated between the two long lines to keep catching.
Having loose fed the 5m line with maggots for most of the match I kept having a look here and in the last hour or so I managed to catch fairly quickly including a couple of big roach and a few more skimmers.
With 15 minutes to go in the match Richard on my right had 2 small carp in 2 casts on the feeder and Neil on his right had one of about 5lb so for the last 10 minutes I tried the feeder with no luck.
I thought I had around 12-14 pound so was pleasantly surprised when they went 16lb 13oz on the scales which was enough for 6th in the match and importantly increased my league lead over second place a little.
The club report and full results can be seen HERE.